SUMMARY: TMG's first iPad app was free, with limited features and a single sponsor. Now, after extensive research, the next generation is available with enhanced functionality, as well as a fee for non-subscribers.

Telegraph Media Group applies lessons learned for new tablet app

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Busy week here at The Telegraph Media Group (TMG) here in London. We have just launched our new iPad news app. Since September last year, we have had a free “Best of The Telegraph” app, which is a curated 50-stories-a-day collection of the best stories. Offering limited functionality, it was paid for via sponsorship of one of our motor advertisers, who had exclusive ad space within the app.

Since September, we have been undertaking extensive research asking readers and advertisers what they like, don’t like and what they would wish to see in a Version 2. They told us that our app complements and not replaces the newspaper product — there are different ways of using both products. The supplements and lifestyle content from the weekend newspapers are not in the iPad edition. Therefore, print completes the package at the weekend, and our newspaper readers are typically older (50+), whereas the iPad average age user is up to 10 years younger.

So, what can I tell you about TMG’s v.2 app? It offers a far greater depth of our content, including:

Our business and sport supplements.

Two interactive crossword puzzles.

The best in pictures and video every day of the week.

Pinch and zoom to change text size within articles.

Infographics.

Front pages for all the key sections of The Telegraph: news, comment, letters, features, business and sports.

The option to switch to night-reading mode, a novel feature allowing users to read the newspaper “in bed” with no excess white light glare.

(This last point is relevant, since we have a spike of readership in the evening. Almost as many readers view our newspaper between 9 and 10 p.m. as do between 9 and 10 a.m.)

It is available to download after 5 a.m. GMT every morning.

Free or not?

The good news for subscribers is that the new app will remain free. The Telegraph has the strongest subscription base in the U.K. quality-daily market with 340,000 subscribers.

This builds upon our value-added strategy for loyal readers.

Otherwise, the app will cost £9.99 a month or £1.19 a day, which makes us the only newspaper so far to offer daily purchase via the Apple App Store.

So, I hope to report back via this blog on how we are doing as time elapses. We are very excited about our new venture. Why not download it yourself and see what we’ve done?

Meanwhile, I will be sharing more details on this and TMG’s tablet approach at the INMA World Congress in New York. Come along next Sunday morning (May 15) and hear the full story.